Face the Fire by Nora Roberts

Four stars

This book came out 

Three Sisters Island, #3

Follows by Heaven and Earth

Hard copy I own

Opinions are my own

Heaven and Earth by Nora Roberts

Ripley Todd has an okay life. Yeah, she's living with her brother and his new wife and, sure, she's having sort of a dry spell with her own sexual escapades and, well, she's a witch which she's not really enjoying but life is still okay. Then MacAllister Brooke comes to Three Sisters Island. Dr. Brooke is there to study the legend of the Three Sisters. He's very interested in mystical forces and UFOs and then becomes
very interested in Ripley Todd. 

She's not indifferent to him but they have two very different attitudes toward her powers. Of course, Ripley's going to have to learn to trust both Mac and her own powers in order to save her own life as well as those of her "sisters."

Four stars

This book came out 

Three Sisters Island, #2

Follows Dance Upon the Air

Followed by Face the Fire

Hard copy I own

Opinions are my own

Dance Upon the Air by Nora Roberts

Nell Channing is on the run. She's come to Three Sisters Island hoping that she can stay hidden in this small community. What she finds is more than safety. While in Mia Devlin's cafe, Nell notices the cook quitting. She harnesses up all of her courage and offers to try out for the job. Soon, she's part of the community, even to the point of seeing one of the locals, Sheriff Todd. Luckily, Zack grew up on the island, so when it turns out Nell is a descendant of one of the sisters and has to help break the cycle started hundreds of years ago. She'll have to harness her destiny to defeat evil. Yep, I said it.

Four stars

This book came out June 5, 2001

Three Sisters Island, #1

Followed by Heaven and Earth

Hard copy I own

Opinions are my own

Lady Avely's Guide to Lies and Charms by Rosalie Oaks

It has been nine years since Dacian killed Lord Charles Garvey and it is time for him to determine what actually happened that night. While he has always believed what he saw, he now wonders if there may not have been some Musing (magic) involved in the story. He and Judith head out with Judith’s husband’s son, Robert, to see what they can uncover.

All is not well at Garvey House  however. Lady Garvey refuses visitors and her granddaughter, Georgina seems to be a prisoner. The current Lord Gavey, Charles’ brother Kenneth, won’t come to the house at all, preferring to stay in the village. 

The story took a LONG time for me to get into and I had to power my way from about a quarter in to the two-thirds mark where it picked up again. There was a leap into the story that happened seven years ago that didn't make sense to me and then a lot of side characters that may be building to the overall arc of the story but didn't provide much other than very temporary red herrings for the end of the story. 

Three stars

Matronly Misadventures #2

This book came out November 13, 2024

Follows Lady Avely's Guide to Truth and Magic

Followed by Lady Avely's Guide to Guile and Peril

ARC kindly provided by Parkerville Press and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

The Folklore of Forever by Sarah Hogle

The book opens with Zelda Tempest looking across the street at her neighbor Morgan and simultaneously noticing how hot he is, being slightly annoyed by his bad violin playing, and also wishing she could get over her writer's block. She wrote a series of fairly successful paranormal books but is having trouble coming up with something new. She's also dealing with the fact that her family all seem to believe that they are witches. She knows better.
Morgan wants to get to know the Tempest women. He knows that their partners can get magic of their own. So he decides to get in touch with Zelda. And that's why I didn't love this book. I made it through to the end but I'm not sure that Morgan and Zelda will have an HFN much less an HEA. The book also rambled all over the place and with a psychedelic break in the middle that came out of nowhere. 

Three stars

This book comes out April 8, 2025

ARC kindly provided by Penguin Group Putnam and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Lady Avely's Guide to Truth and Magic by Rosalie Oaks

This is a really cute book and I am going to figure out how to read the other series that Oaks has. I was a little annoyed at some of the capitalization in this book and can't figure out why because I haven't minded it in other books. I am also not a fan of time skips but that only happened in the first half of this book and I was very relieved. 

Judith Avely has only recently been given the rank of marchioness for her husband's service to the crown. Unfortunately, after his death, she also discovered something else about him and she is returning to Sargenet, the estate of the Duke of Sargen, to try to heal that secret. Being able to use her new title will work to her advantage as she doesn't want anyone to know who she is. 

The first night at the inn, she not only encounters a vampiri, she also sees, and is seen by, the Duke. It seems that he is recently returned after nine years abroad to deal with the rumors of a haunting on his estate and the death of a footman. He could use her Gift of Discernment (being able to hear a lie) to help ferret out the truth of what has been going on while he is gone. 

I loved the lay out of the main characters but thought we could have learned more about some of the side characters, especially the ones that come into play at the end of the book. It is hard to do when there are so many characters that we will probably see in future books so Oaks was trying to paint them all equally. 

Matronly Misadventures #1

Four stars

This book came out February 16, 2024

Followed by Lady Avely's Guide to Lies and Charms

ARC kindly provided by Parkerville Press and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

The Pantomime Murders by Fiona Veitch Smith

Clara Vale is asked to look into the sudden disappearance of Sybil Langford. The woman is legendary in pantomime circles and her professionalism is well-known. For her to leave so quickly and in the middle of the season worries her young friend Peggy. Even as Clara is looking into the information, another person dies. 

At the same time, she is hired to help figure out why a local department store is losing so much merchandise. The man who hires for the department store is a familiar name, Jack Danskin. He is eventually brought into the mystery a little bit more and he may become a bigger part of the series as we go on. 

I like this book better than the first ones as we are getting to know the characters more and the mystery came together a bit more smoothly. 

Four stars

This book comes out November 28, 2023

Follows The Picture House Murders

ARC kindly provided by Embla Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Sunshine, Sangria, and Scandal by Wendy Day

This is the third book in the Sally and Pearl mystery series but I didn't feel like I was missing much. We get glimpses into the first two books as the two go on a true crime podcast before they decide they need to escape winter and find someplace sunny to be. A cruise seems like the perfect option. 

At dinner, Sally and Pearl are seated with a group of real estate agents who are all on the trip because they excel at their jobs. We get sketches of all of them but one of the standouts is Eddie. We learn more about the man as he works his way into winning the "Sexiest Man on Board" contest and seemingly playing the field though one of the other agents, Amber, seems might interested in him. He wins an amazing amount of money in the shipboard casino which is given to him in cash. Of course, he will be the one to end up dead. But why? Pearl and Sally decide to dig into the mystery. 

These two are an interesting pair with Sally's anxiety about any number of things from ordering food to having nothing to do. Pearl tends to be more of a bulldozer who clips her Gs (annoying to read, by the way) and tries to avoid the advances of Malcolm, another of the realtors. 

It was an interesting story but may not be a series I continue. 

Three and a half stars

This book came out October 9, 2023

Follows Christmas, Cabernet, and Chaos

ARC kindly provided by Open Sky Publishing and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari

Saffron Everleigh is a researcher at the University College of London. She is trying to navigate through a world changed by WWI and one that is not generally open to young ladies. This includes navigating overtures and gossip. What it doesn't normally contain is attempted murder.

With the rest of the faculty in her department, Saffron is invited to a dinner party. She is not worried about how to behave (there are some allusions to wealthy grandparents) but she is worried about encountering the department head who tried to attack her. Everyone is gathered to talk about a new expedition that will be taking place shortly. That doesn't mean there isn't some intrigue as various people melt out to balconys or find places for a rendezvous. Saffron almost finds herself in a sticky situation when she accidentally meets Alexander Ashton, a researcher she just met, in a darkened hallway. They are almost discovered by Mrs. Henry: her husband is leading the expedition and she is the person who is poisoned later in the evening. 

Saffron probably wouldn't have gotten involved but the police have arrested her mentor and father figure Dr. Maxwell. She decides to mount an investigation of her own that may or may not end up putting her in a precarious situation. 

Three and a half stars

This book came out June 7, 2022

Followed by A Botanist's Guide to Flowers and Fatality

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

The Picture House Murders by Fiona Veitch Smith

Miss Clara Vale is one of the first of the graduating group that includes women getting a degree in chemistry. Unfortunately, she is not able to find a job that will let her work in that field. Even more unfortunately, the one person who seemed to ever support her, her Uncle Bob, has passed away. She hasn't seen him for years but he's left Clara his worldly fortune, including his detective agency. 

Unsure of what to do, she decides to give herself a little bit of time to figure it all out. While she is searching through her thoughts and talking to the people who were closest to her uncle, one of his clients stops by. The woman's case was still open and she is hoping that Clara will  take it on. Alice is asking Clara to go up against an insurance company that isn't paying out for their movie theater. And her husband died in between. When a second fire occurs, Clara gets suspicious.

This was an interesting story and a nice start to a new series. With that, there was a lot going on and one or two threads probably could have been shaved to allow more room for character development. 

Three and a half stars

This book comes out August 29, 2023

Followed by the Pantomime Murders

ARC kindly provided by Embla Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

A Fatal Encounter in Tuscany by Vivian Conroy

I hadn't read the first two books in this series and I regret that. While Conroy is an adept writer and put some information in to catch us up on characters without info dumping, I really wish I had known more about Atalanta Ashford and her sleuthing abilities. 

But we meet her in this book as she is solving the mystery of a missing ring. Having read Sherlock Holmes, she is very easily able to find where the ring went, riling Inspector Deriot who seems to be a rival of sorts. Or maybe she is more accurately a thorn in his side. 

But she won't be a thorn for long as her friend (?) Raoul is "abducting" her for a grand adventure, a ride on the Orient Express. It is there that she and Raoul meet Catharina Lanetti who is going back to Italy to celebrate her father's birthday. Her family is... interesting, to say the least. The patriarch worships the Machiavellis and his schemes are no less convoluted. Catharina invites Atalanta and Raoul to join the celebration. While Atalanta wonders whether this is a set up, she is still drawn to the Lanettie compound where, as predicted, Catharina's father is killed. She, as the person who has come back the most recently is blamed. But is she really the killer?
There is a LOT of drama and untold secrets in this book. I think, having read the first two books, I might be more invested in the story but I do feel like Conroy is setting up Atalanta and Raoul to be more than friends but the chemistry isn't there yet. 

Three and a half stars

This book comes out April 13, 2023

Follows Last Seen in Santorini

Followed by Last Dance in Salzburg

ARC kindly provided by NetGalley and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter

Opinions are my own

Gnome Schooled by Erik Henry Vick

There is a new Grand Cynosure in town and he is declaring a war on snacks. He had ties to a gnome extremist group but has supposedly cut those ties many years ago. But that war becomes even more important when an angel turns up dead of an overdose on Cheez Its. It's a murder that sends Dru and Leery to work with Ice Cofy, a man who is both Claw and Warder. They will also be sent to a number of different factions in order to figure out who actually supplied the drugs that killed the angel.

Lots of little in jokes to the TV series here. The story starts and ends with the GC but it is so loosely tied to the meat of the actual story (the drug dealers) that it doesn't make much sense but it was highly entertaining.

Three stars

This book came out August 28, 2020

Claw & Warder #6

Follows They Ate Gatsby

Followed by A Tail of Two Cities

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

They Ate Gatsby by Erik Henry Vick

Key witness J. Gatsby is not in court and he's got a good reason, he's dead. His ghost points toward a group of vampires known as the Dead Set. This is a super exclusive group that only someone who moves in high social circles would be able to infiltrate. One who might want to bring along her werewolf partner along as a bodyguard.

This book has an unexpected ending but it was better than the last book because Dru has, finally, stopped talking like a little girl.

Three stars

This book came out July 24, 2020

Follows Silkie Stalkings

Followed by Gnome Schooled

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Silkie Stalkings by Erik Henry Vick

It's been a little while since I listened to the first three stories but I don't remember Dru talking like a little girl so much. It's REALLY annoying. She's one of the princesses of darkness and a detective on the New York police force but uses words like "Mommy" and several times her speaking is literally described as being a little girl voice. The premise of these stories has always been interesting and Vick does a great job of weaving in lore from the original shows and from myths but this story just didn't work very well. 

Dru and Leery are on a new case. Three men have recently thrown themselves off the George Washington Bridge. Strangely, none of the three have no soul on record as having gone to the afterlife. The two detectives realize that all three victims were using an app of "proprietary magic and technology," Sinder. The app is owned by none other than the King of Sin himself, Dru's uncle Luci. Of course, he will not let any information go easily so there are some battles, both mental and physical.

Two and a half stars

This book came out June 26, 2020

Follows Mitzvah

Followed by They Ate Gatsby

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle

Opinions are my own

Zinnia by Jayne Castle

Zinnia Spring's life hasn't been going real great lately. Her parents died, her family is pressuring her academic brother into being CEO of the family corporation, and then a wealthy husband and wife set her up as his mistress to cover up their menage a trois resulting in Zinnia being branded the "Scarlet Lady." And now, trying to track down a matrix talent she's held the focus for (her prism is well suited for matrix talents), she encounters a psychic vampire.

Nick Chastain is a powerful matrix talent but not a psychic vampire. Even if. He did sort of "jump" Zinnia's prism on the psychic plane. Luckily, she works past it (pretty fast, actually) and is able to work with him not only to figure out what happened to her original matrix, but to discover what happened to his father... a decades old murder. 

Better than the first book in the series, Castle starts to find her rhythm in her new world.

Three stars

This book came out May 1, 1998

Follows Amaryllis

Followed by Orchid

Audiobook from Audible

Opinions are my own

Rocket to the Morgue by Anthony Boucher

A take on the science fiction writers of the time (1941), this book has many thinly veiled references to writers in that genre. They are all working hard to make money by writing as many words as possible and all of them have a great dislike for Hilary Foulkes. Hilary isn't even a writer, he's just the executor of his father's estate. But that estate is vast and Hilary has the power to stop many projects. So it's not, perhaps, surprising to mystery readers that he is getting threats against his life. But Inspector Marshall is not amused as the clues seem to be pointing to his friend, Matt Duncan.

I had heard about this book on the Classic Mysteries podcast. The author was more complimentary than I was but he also knows more about the authors of that time.

Three stars

This book came out 1942

Follows Nine Times Nine

Borrowed as ebook from Hoopla

Opinions are my own

Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Big Lie by Anthony Del Col, Werther Dell'edera

This was... dark. Especially for anyone who grew up with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys (and their parents) being beacons of good in the world. This series upends a lot of things you would've read while retaining some spirit of the original creations.

The Hardy Boys are at odds with each other. It seems that their father is a dirty cop. But now he's dead and can't defend himself. And Frank and Joe are turning against each other. There's someone that is willing to help them out though, an old friend. She's even willing to help when the evidence looks like her own father might be involved in something shady.

Three stars

This book came out November 28, 2017

Borrowed as ebook from Hoopla

Opinions are my own

How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire by Kerrelyn Sparks

I had heard about this book on an episode of Fated Mates. It sounded like a fun and fluffy read so I thought I'd try it out. It was, indeed, fun and fluffy but it wasn't a book for me, just too much going on.

Shanna Whelan witnessed a murder so she's now in the Witness Protection Program. So now she's a night dentist. Except that she's afraid of blood so she's REALLY hoping that no one comes in. Too bad. Roman Draganesti is in and he wants a weird wolf's tooth implanted in his mouth.

Except that Roman is actually a millionaire. His seethe invented synthetic blood and now they're trying to create better ways to get it to vampires, especially the ones that would rather stick with the old ways. It's just his bad luck to test drive the mannequin (sex doll?) and accidentally stick his tooth where it shouldn't have gone.

Now they're off on a madcap, whirlwind adventure that just might end in a vampire war.

Three stars

This book came out July 26, 2005

Followed by Vamps and the City

Borrowed as ebook from Hoopla

Opinions are my own

Mitzvah by Erik Henry Vick

Someone is trying to set up Leery Oriscoe. There's a dead body and the witness describes his wolf to a T. He's taken off the case and it's up to Dru to figure out what is going on. This requires a trip to visit her parents in Hell. Then Leery and Dru are off across the country to talk to an old friend of her father's who seems to be the person pulling the strings.

Three stars

This book came out May 29, 2020

Follows Arms Dealer 

Followed by Silkie Stalkings

Borrowed as audiobook from Audible Plus

Opinions are my own

Arms Dealer by Erik Henry Vick

A young woman is waiting for her friend but only receives a phone call saying her friend has been injured. When the young woman goes to look, she is also attacked and left for dead. Leery Oriscoe and his partner Dru Nogan are assigned to the case. 

It turns out that they are diving into the underground world of arms dealing. No, not guns. This is connected to the zombie mafia so we are looking at literal arms. and this leads into a feud that travels into at least the next book. 

A play on the Law & Order television series but with supernatural creatures. Definitely needs to be read as tongue firmly in cheek.

Three stars

This book came out April 24, 2020

Follows Seduction

Followed by Mitzvah

Borrowed as audiobook from Audible Plus

Opinions are my own